Correa had promised to boost spending on the poor amid the worst budget deficit on record.

Lasso, the former chief executive of the South American nation's second-biggest publicly held bank, Banco de Guayaquil SA, congratulated Correa just minutes after the results were released.

Correa begins a new term with few options to finance his campaign pledges as stagnant oil prices and slumping growth limit funds to boost outlays on popular social welfare programs.

The self-described socialist revolutionary, who dubbed foreign bondholders "true monsters" when he defaulted on $3.2 billion of debt in 2008, may now return to overseas credit markets to take advantage of a record rally in high-yield debt to help fund spending needed to sustain an economic expansion.